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The Florida Democratic Party filed lawsuits seeking to get four counties to offer more time for voting before Election Day.

The lawsuit filed in Orange County asked for additional time because an early voting site in that county was shut down for several hours while authorities investigated a suspicious package.

The party has a separate federal lawsuit seeking more early voting time in the counties of Palm Beach, Miami-Dade and Broward. Those counties were dealing with waits of up to six hours Saturday, the last scheduled day of early voting.

Gov. Rick Scott refused requests this week from Democrats to extend early voting.

Of course the hours should be extended because people didn't get an absentee ballot because they thought they could vote early. Maybe they will be out of town on Tues. Why are people afraid to let people vote? voting is a basic right. Make it as convenient as possible.

What an absolutely silly ruling. There is plenty of time for anyone to make it to the polls before the normal closing time.

Good afternoon, Chalons.

IF the voting place was shut down for several hours while they investigated a "suspicious package," then by all means make sure that those people who went to the polls and couldn't vote get their chance to do so..

Wouldn't want to be accused of disenfranchising anyone, would we?

BTW, I hope that someone follows up on this to see how many people that may have may have been affected actually show up!

There is a long established day for voting - it's called Election Day which falls on the second Tuesday in November. Otherwise you may apply for and receive an absentee ballot. If people can't make time for this important event in their busy, busy lives, then it probably isn't that important to them. This early voting and motor voters, etc. has got to stop. Go back to the rules.

That is your choice and I respect that. Others may wish to avail themselves of absentee ballots if they are legitimately going to be out of town on business or they are in the Military. But it still should be one day only and that is the Second Tuesday in November.

By Ben Domenech - November 3, 2012The time has come to make a prediction about the 2012 election, and I’m not going to shirk the task. I’ve spent the past few weeks walking you through the thought process I’ve had about the decisions made by both campaigns, the missteps and missed opportunities on both sides, and the central question seems to me to be this: in the long term, demographic trend lines indicate that President Obama’s base is larger, more diverse, and allows for more paths to victory. But elections aren’t in the long term, they’re snapshots, as the White House is fond of saying every first Friday of the month, a moment in time when Americans assess the candidates and make a choice. And for all the long term factors which favor Obama’s approach to politics, in this election I expect the American people to choose to take a different path for the next four years.

You could go blind looking over the polling data in this election and attempting to analyze the internal information and the trendlines of key groups. Dan McLaughlin's article does a good job of summing up the limitations of polling, and the divergence of state and national polls, which was clearly on front and center display in this cycle. Some allege bias behind this, but I see more a lack of information, even about something as simple as what percentage of cell phone voters you ought to include in your assessments. But a few points have stood out to me as remarkable for their consistency over the past month, and for how little the Obama campaign has done to disrupt them. And these points all lean toward a Romney victory.

I believe this election has turned, as I argued last week, into an undertow election. Romney’s support has remained remarkably consistent since his selection of Paul Ryan healed any remaining rift with the conservative base. There is no great wave of support rising up from the previously undecided to elevate Romney to a definitive win. However, Obama’s base of support has shown signs of being less engaged, less active, and less eager to vote. All indications are that turnout is going to lag the heights of 2008, falling closer to the levels of 1996 and 2000 – a distinct advantage for the Republican, no matter the election. It is also looking like turnout will break the string of decreasingly white electorates, again a bad sign for the president. As Josh Kraushaar points out, Team Obama may have the better ground game – but they also may have made a significant error in deciding which states could function as a firewall against Romney’s appeals:

“The Obama turnout machine isn’t quite as valuable in the more homogeneous battleground states—Iowa, Ohio, Wisconsin, and New Hampshire—that make up the president’s firewall. These states have older, whiter electorates. The name of the game for Democrats here is persuasion as much as mobilization. In Ohio, Obama’s campaign strategy is clear: making Romney’s opposition to the auto bailout a central part of the bid to hold onto enough working-class whites to win the state. But it’s also becoming clear that it’s not just Ohio, Iowa, and Wisconsin that are looking winnable for Romney—it’s the entire swath of competitive Midwestern and Rust Belt states that share demographic similarities, and where Republicans made significant gains during the 2010 midterms. Obama holds a small lead in Ohio thanks to the auto bailout, but the issues driving the electorate in neighboring states are more favorable to Republicans.”

Team Obama may have successfully made Romney toxic in Ohio, and indeed, my electoral map below shows him failing to win there, but other Midwestern states have not experienced that same level of thermonuclear ad attack, and there the ground may prove more fertile.

I also expect Mitt Romney to maximize the white religious vote. Church attendance is about as solid an indicator of voting consistency as exists, and I expect Romney to mount a significant recovery over McCain in this arena. The major push Obama made in 2008 among white Catholics is completely absent this cycle – the Doug Kmiecs of the world have faded into the background, and the potentially centrist social justice-oriented Obama who spoke at Notre Dame is no more. The anti-Mormon sentiment has never caught on among the Christian community to the degree some feared. And Obama’s contraception and abortion message has caused a great deal of concern among religious groups, Protestant and Catholic alike. The Obama of 2008 lost Protestants to McCain by just 53% to 46% (Kerry lost Protestants to Bush by 14 points) and won Catholics by 56% to 43%. In both categories, I expect Romney’s margin to improve upon McCain’s and dramatically so, in ways that will particularly help him in the Midwest. And beyond the religious population, it’s worth keeping in mind that in 2008, Obama won 43% of the white vote – the highest percentage of any Democrat since Jimmy Carter. An Obama who returns to typical Democratic percentages in all these areas is likely to lose.

It seems apparent from looking at the early voting numbers that Team Obama is consistently underperforming its marks. Early voting was a major part of the campaign’s push this time around – with each passing day, Chicago seems less certain of victory there. Without a significant early voting advantage, it forces Obama to count on GOTV to an unprecedented degree. But GOTV methods only count for so much, and even in states that I expect Obama to win, such as Nevada, his performance is well below the levels of 2008:

“The Democrats have adopted a don’t-worry-be-happy façade this cycle to make it seem as if the Reid machine is whirring as efficiently as four years ago. Their spinning is that they have won every day in Clark (where they had an 83,000-vote lead in early voting last cycle), they are keeping the Republicans at bay in Washoe (it’s almost dead even) and the high rural vote will peter out by Election Day. But they know that Obama will not win Nevada by 12 points this cycle and that every vote they bank they may need to hold off the tide in the worst economy in America, where hope and change have become disappointment and despair.”

Polls have consistently found that higher percentages of whites are “extremely likely” to vote compared to blacks and Latinos – another sign of concern for the President.

In sum, I see the bottom slipping out from under Obama’s feet, and a campaign hoping to hold on just long enough to salvage a slim victory, one where he is almost certain to lose the popular vote. He is underperforming among whites and independents, and particularly among those likeliest to vote. I have never believed in running the prevent defense, and Obama has been running it for months. Running out the clock is rarely a winning strategy in sports or politics, and it is one I expect to fail this year. Thus, my prediction for Tuesday is this: Obama 260, Romney 278.

justtired: Having only one day of voting simply doesn't make sense anymore. Too many voters, not enough polling locations or hours in the day to only have one day for voting. Look how long the lines are for early voting alone - six hours in Florida, in some cases. If people only had one day to vote, it simply wouldn't be feasible for some some of them to be able to, due to work commitments (such as people who get paid by the hour and need to work as many hours as they can to earn a living for themselves and their families) or health issues. Early voting reduces lines on Election Day and allows for schedule flexibility.

Besides, voter turnout is already depressingly low. Allowing more days to vote is an excellent way to combat this.

Also, absentee ballot fraud is a lot easier to pull off than in-person voter fraud. You don't need to show voter ID to vote absentee - and isn't voter ID being hailed as the silver bullet in the war against voter fraud? It's not effective against absentee voting. And I'll repeat my point that an absentee vote can be lost or disregarded.

BTW, Election Day is actually the FIRST Tuesday in November. These days, anyway.

Poor Jack. Still clinging to any bright shinny object that reinforces your idea of what is right in the world? How's that theory of undecided voters breaking for the challenger or that white paper written that guarantees that Romney is going to win BIG based on that economic model of past elections? Poor Jack. You are going to wake up on the 7th and really be upset with all those people that led you around by your nose for a full year. Rove already has his scapegoat, Sandy. Some republican posters here have theirs, election fraud, but you, you are a true believer. Always the ones to go a little bit crazy after their dreams have been dashed once again. Hope you find time next Wednesday to post here. I'll be watching for you. After all, I know we are all in this together and we should look out for the well being of our fellow Americans. Maybe after Romney loses you can spend time finding articles that explain how Obama is a once in a century anomaly. This election is unique in history. And it isn't because he's black. It's because he's good. And lucky.

Oh, David, I trust Jack will be smart enough to come up with some clever way to mask his humiliation. He's been one of the most creative republicans, in so far as finding other people's opinions and posting them here. It's like he doesn't really have control of his own mind and has to rely on other people writing things for him to copy. Were you around when he was posting the polls from the Carter Reagan election and how this would be the exact replica of that? Funny. That didn't work out so well, then he posted the challenger study, then the paper about economics. It's like he doesn't believe this election is happening in "real" time and it can be made into some more favorable rerun of the past. Poor Jack. But at least he does read. That's a good thing.